Essex men are supposed in the " shires" to be
preternaturally stupid, and a Chelmsford jury has given a verdict which ahnost justifies the supposition. Jane Merritt, buxom widow of Great Chesterford, was acquainted with Stephen Rudland, a young man of twenty-one, who, as she admitted, had taken liberties with her with no other remonstrance than a kiss. On the night of the 12th June, about ten o'clock, he walked into her house and, as she says, ravished her. She gave no alarm, and her boy of nine, who was sleeping with her, did not wake, and although she informed a friend, still this friend in the witness- box prevaricated grossly. The widow never gave the prisoner in charge, and he from the first declared he had visited her by .appointment. This was all the evidence, and Mr. Justice Crompton asked the jury significantly if they had heard enough. To his utter surprise they said they had, and were satisfied of the truth of the charge. The judge of coarse ordered the counsel to speak, and then charged with most unusual distinctness in favour of the prisoner, but all to no purpose, the jury actually bringing him in guilty with a recommendation to mercy, " because there had not been sufficient- resistance." That is, he was pro - notmced in the teeth of evidence guilty of rape, and at the same time not guilty. The judge was compelled to accept the verdict, and Stephen Rudland was actually condemned to five years' penal .servitude for an offence which, as the judge and everybody else except the jury believed he had not committed. We trust Sir George Grey will undo the jury's work, but such verdicts make men very doubtful of the value of juries. The moment a woman .brings a charge, their brains seem to desert them.
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